Title: Vengeance, Sacrifice, and Forgiveness
Author: AoN
Word Count: 4,000
Genre: Drama, Adventure
Rating: PG-13
Feedback: Please and thank you! Let me know what I'm doing right or doing wrong.
Summary: With the curse weakening and Regina struggling to keep Storybrooke under control, hidden secrets and lies from a distant land surface with the arrival of a stranger from her past, thought to have perished long ago – and they want their happily ever after.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Emma stood in silence, the hilt of the sword still clasped in her hand with a grasp so strong it seemed impossible to wrest it from her. She wouldn't dare let it go, not with the head of the dragon resting close to her with its dead eyes wide open, as though it would spring back to life at any given moment. Did dragons do that? Did they grow their heads back? Two for every one that was hacked off? Or was that some other beast? Did that thing actually exist too?
This dragon couldn't have possessed that power. At the very least, Lucy, the aunt she never knew she had and the idea still sat very strange to Emma, Lucy wouldn't have left her alone if it did. Lucy had promised to protect Emma for her sister's sake, for Emma's mother- for Mary Margaret's sake.
They had left a while ago, Lucy and Regina, their foot steps had stopped echoing in the tunnels just a bit ago. Emma was not sure where they had planned to go and perhaps she was better not knowing. Somewhere safe, Lucy had told her, trying to mask the uncertainty in her voice.
The question had gone unspoken, but it had been shared among them regardless: with the curse broken, what place could possibly be safe? Down here in the mines? Didn't they just slay a fire-breathing dragon down here? What if there was another?
How in the hell did Emma agree to stay here again?
xxxx
"This place," Lucy murmured, stepping from the tunnel into the chamber as she followed after Regina, who was still wobbling on her feet. Hearing a shimmering from behind, Lucy glanced over her shoulder and nearly jumped out of her skin upon seeing another person staring back at her. The tunnel had vanished, replaced by a mirror; she had been frightened by her own reflection. Clutching her chest and sighing heavily, she turned back to Regina who was watching her with a faint smile, earning a slight glare and a wrinkled nose from Lucy.
Some things never changed: little Lily was still rather jumpy and easily frustrated.
"I-It's," Lucy continued, a little flustered as she tried to regain her composure. "It's the mausoleum, isn't it? We're underneath the mausoleum, aren't we?"
"Yes," Regina answered honestly, avoiding Lucy's gaze. Without saying a word to each other, the two were thinking the same thing: the last time they were both in here, under neath the mausoleum, Regina had rammed and pinned Lucy against the wall and plunged her hand into Lucy's chest with the intention of ripping out a heart that was not no longer present. "No one knows of this place."
Lucy hesitated for a moment, catching a quick lie in her throat. "T-That's not entirely true. I told Red, after I was here the first time," she admitted. "Only because I couldn't be sure. I didn't know what your motives were and I had been gone for a while and as a precaution I-"
"Lily," Regina interrupted the rambling. "It's fine."
However, gathered from the pained look in Regina's eyes, Lucy could tell it truly was anything but. It was not a matter of anger that the secret no longer was so, but rather that the same secret had been unintentionally betrayed. No. Although Lucy had not referred to the title by name, it was as thought she had said it regardless. 'It was all because I had to protect myself from her, from the Evil Queen.'
"Regardless, Lily, there are many hidden passages and chambers down here," Regina explained. "No one else can grant entrance but me. We'll be safe."
"They're really going to come after us then?" Lucy asked, watching as Regina crossed the vault of beating hearts and stand before a plain, undecorated brick wall.
Regina waved her hand across the patterned bricks. They instantly faded away, replaced by yet another mirror. The glass immediately melted away in order to reveal an entrance to what Lucy could only see as a white room, with a chandelier hanging from the ceiling and mannequins adorning the most regal of gowns Lucy had ever seen, more so than the ones she had seen her mother wear while Lucy herself was in frilly princess dresses.
"No, dear," Regina replied nonchalantly. "Not us. Only me."
xxxx
A new set pair of footsteps, more rapid than the ones left behind by Lucy and Regina who had dragged along, reached Emma's ears. With her heart beating rapidly and painfully in her chest and her palms now sweating, Emma found herself wishing for another go at the dragon than face what was coming through the tunnels. Fire breathing dragons were a reality she could far better handle and perhaps even comprehend as opposed to the idea of coming face-to-face with the people who were supposedly her parents, just as they had hypothesized. Emma had told Lucy she could do this, no problem – she had been searching for them for so long that it was about time for the search to finally come to an end.
What Emma didn't admit was that in reality, she had stopped looking years ago. She never came to terms with the situation and often found herself asking why. Why did they abandon her? Why couldn't she find them? Were they even looking for her? Did they even care at all? They were unanswered questions that Emma had kept tucked away, but they now threatened to bubble over the surface. She couldn't let them.
She wouldn't let them.
"Where's Henry?" Emma quickly asked as not only Mary Margaret, but also David emerged from the tunnels. "Is he safe?"
"He's with Granny and Red, he couldn't be safer," Mary Margaret replied, rushing up to Emma who quickly took a couple steps back. Mary Margaret came to an abrupt halt; David nearly ran into her. He glanced from the blade in his daughter's hand to the severed dragon's head.
"You slayed…"David's voice, so full of emotion as he gazed upon his not-so-little girl, trailed off. Emma couldn't take it, she looked down towards the ground, away from them.
Distract them somehow, Lucy had told her. Keep them at bay for as long as possible. It shouldn't be too hard. Right.
"Emma," Mary Margaret murmured, her own shaky voice growing just a bit stronger as she continued. "We are so proud of you…" She reached out to tuck Emma's long blonde hair behind her ears before wrapping her arms around the young woman that used to be the small bundle of a little girl she held against her chest only yesterday.
Emma couldn't move, even more so when David had joined in on the hug after he took the sword away from her, reassuring ever so quietly that everything was okay. Emma didn't want to let go. The sword offered her protection, it made sense. David, who Emma had only known as the former coma patient and the love sick man who couldn't keep his affairs straight, had to pry away the weapon from her fingers.
And Mary Margaret, the elementary school teacher. Her roommate.
Emma's eyes began to sting, her wall began to crumble and break. This was all too much, but she couldn't let them, or anyone else for that matter, know. "Where is he?" she continued. "At the diner or-?"
"The bed and breakfast," Mary Margaret replied. "He's safe-"
"I need to get back to him."
"To protect him against Regina-" David began.
"No," Emma interrupted. "To tell him that she's alright."
"Alright?" David repeated, quickly looking around the space they found themselves in. "Did she escape? We must go after her- "
"We're not going after anyone," Emma stressed. "She saved us. She helped us slay the dragon."
"You don't know what she's done, Emma," David pointed out. "All the things she has done to everyone in town."
Mary Margaret placed a hand in David's shoulders. He stepped down. "Us?" she repented, eyebrows furrowing. "What do you mean, 'us?'"
"Lucy," Emma answered. "She escaped from the manor. She's with Regina."
"She's alive?" Mary Margaret started blinking furiously.
"Yes," Emma nodded.
"Who's Lucy?" David asked.
"Lillian," Mary Margaret replied.
David frowned. "Your younger half sister?" he questioned. "But she died when you two were just children."
"I thought so as well," Mary Margaret admitted. "I don't quite understand the entire story, but she's not. She's…alive."
"And she transforms into a wolf," Emma murmured, shaking her head. "But she's gone into hiding."
"Luckily for us, we have a wolf of our own," David pointed out. "We shall get Red down here in the mines and-"
"No," Mary Margaret protested before Emma could, taking her by surprise. "We won't."
"Snow, now's our chance."
Mary Margaret shook her head. "For Lily's sake, I can't," she replied.
"With all due respect," David fumed. "Princess Lillian does not understand all the terrible things that her mother has done and, frankly, I don't think neither should be trusted."
"Can't be trusted?" Emma spoke up. "She saved me. She promised Sn- Mary Margaret that she'd protect me. How is that anything but worthy of trust, regardless of what Regina has done? She's proved time and again to be trust worthy. What about the whole 'sins of the father,' well, mother crap?"
"How trust worthy can she be if she's hiding with Regina?" David questioned.
Emma suddenly realized from where she got her stubbornness.
"I won't let you or anyone else go after them," Emma swore.
"Enough," Mary Margaret hissed. This was far from the reunion she had imagined, but it was close to the arguments they would have endured with a teenaged princess. "No one is going after them and no one will question Lily's character. I know what she's doing – she's hiding themselves from me."
Emma, with furrowed eyebrows, frowned. "Why?" she asked.
"Our last conversations didn't end so well," Mary Margaret replied, shaking her head. "She's under the impression that… that I'm after her mother, that I want revenge."
"Don't you?" David asked.
A short moment of silence past between them, as if Mary Margaret was questioning herself once more the very same thing, but she shook her head. "It's never-ending and I refuse to allow the cycle to continue, Charming," she answered. "What do I gain in revenge? Justice? But then what about Lily? She'll never forgive me, she'll suffer, again, and what if she then wants revenge as well, as properly so? It has to end and it has to end now."
"Snow."
"You're angry, I know," Mary Margaret said. "I'm angry too, Charming, but so was Regina, when she lost her daughter, all because of me."
"That wasn't your fault," David pointed out.
"It might as well have been," Mary Margaret replied. "I didn't push her into the river, but I did take her out of the castle that morning. We snuck out together, I lead us out, I insisted on it. It's my fault Regina was no longer a mother, no longer happy. She gave into her anger. Look where it got her."
"A cursed town where everyone fears her, where the only form of happiness was her own," David answered. "Do you not remember what she said on our wedding day, Snow?"
"I do, " Mary Margaret answered. "But all she received was a town that's no longer cursed, calling for her death," she corrected. "Where she was not always happy, but lonely."
Emma shifted on her feet slightly. "Why do I have a feeling that the town's not going to be on our side in all this?"
"They won't be," David replied. "Nor will they be convinced otherwise."
"We'll have to proceed with caution," Mary Margaret pointed out.
"Enough caution to hold back an entire town?" Emma questioned, raising an eyebrow. "We're four people and a werewolf. No one in their right mind would bet on us against a mob."
With matching frowns, David met Mary Margaret's eye as they both reached the same conclusion. "We ask for help then," David stated. "From the one man who can take on an entire town: Rumpelstilskin."
"Who?"
"Mr. Gold," Mary Margaret clarified.
xxxx
Regina watched in silence as Lucy slowly walked around the chamber, examining each piece of the regal attire and the royal life she should have had. She watched as Lucy's hands hovered over certain pieces, too afraid to touch the garments, as if they belonged to two different social class, that Lucy was somehow unworthy of such pieces even though it was an echo of something that should have been. Regina did not dare break the silence, allowing Lucy to take in everything uninterrupted.
She shifted slightly, when a piece in the back caught Lucy's attention. Lucy took quick interest and made a beeline from the slender maroon dress, embroidered with black material, to a simple blue dress from Regina's girlhood. Lucy took the blue silk into her hands.
"This dress," Lucy murmured, her eyebrows furrowed. "What is it? Where does it come from?"
Regina could hear a hint of panic and concern in her voice, one that Regina could not place. Her response lingered, cueing Lucy to continue. "I've seen this dress before," Lucy stated.
"That's impossible," Regina replied, walking over to her. The last time she had adorned the piece, she had been years younger than Lucy now.
"No," Lucy insisted. "I've seen it. I've worn it."
"Lily," Regina murmured, shaking her head. What she was suggesting was even more impossible.
"Please, tell me where it's from," Lucy repeated, growing more distressed. "Why is it here?"
Regina placed her hand on Lucy's shoulder. Her touch made the young woman look away from the dress. "It's what I was wearing," Regina began, feeling her mouth dry. "It's what I was wearing when I met your father for the first time."
The material fell from Lucy's hands as if it had become burning hot. Frowning, Regina led her away from the mannequin. She brought her to the couch and sat her down. "Where have you worn it?"
"I-It's hard to explain," Lucy replied, swallowing hard. "There's this place, this realm that I go to sometimes-"
"You can travel between realms?" Regina questioned. She knew that Lucy did not grow up without magic. It had all started with her grandmother, Regina's mother, who would levitate the little girl's toys. Regina forbade it, but now she was certain her little Lily did not always listen to her dear mother. Only moments ago, Regina witnessed Lucy trying to summon a wave to lift the sheriff into the air herself. Regina was not surprised, not entirely.
Magic was a tempting mistress.
"No, not realm jumping, not like Jefferson," Lucy answered, shaking her head. She looked down at the pristine marble floor and then over her shoulder once more toward the blue dress that was causing her so much grief. Regina placed a tender hand on her arm, a small gesture that regained Lucy's attention.
"Grandpa Henry called it… a realm between the two worlds," Lucy said, swallowing hard.
"Grandpa Henry?" Regina repeated, frowning. Daddy. Her free hand rested against her chest, her heart grew heavy both from the guilt and the news Lucy, without a doubt, was about to deliver. "The realm between the world of the living and the dead," Regina murmured. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, an attempt to calm her thoughts. She knew the implications of one visiting such a realm. From her own understanding, it was an effect from the sleeping curse. Once awoken, the previously cursed ventured back to the realm during slumber, back to the land of limbo. Regina was also aware that no one cheated death, not without the aid of powerful dark magic, of which Lucy was not capable.
"You see yourself in that dress in that realm," Regina said. "When you speak with-"
"He apologizes," Lucy interrupted. "For not being able to protect you. He regrets it."
Now it was Regina's turn to look away. Her eyes stung, even more so when she felt Lucy's scoot over closer to her, but she quickly blinked them away. "He did what he could," Regina reassured, mostly for Lucy's sake more than anything else. "Your grandfather, he was a great man."
"I remember," Lucy murmured. "He still hopes you'll find your happiness."
"I have my happiness here: I have Henry," Regina replied. "And I have you back. I'm not losing either."
"But-"
"I'm not losing you again, Lily," Regina stated. It had been the most painful moment in her life: laying her own child to rest. She would not subject herself to it once again. "There is always a way."
"Magic can't stop-"
"It can. Incredibly power magic-"
"Dark magic, you mean."
"Lily, please."
"The fairies wouldn't grant my wish because of dark magic," Lucy pointed out. "I was tainted by it. They wouldn't let me see you one more time because of the magic grandmother showed me, the same magic you used when I was younger."
"I learned to protect you, as I wish to do now," Regina stressed. "I never casted any spells on you. I-"
Regina halted as the momentum of Lucy's words struck her. The fairies would not come to her dying child's aid because an aura of dark magic surrounded the little girl, the same little girl who had always been so weak, so sick from birth, when she came into the world early. There were no remnants of that child in the young woman before her now. Lucy demonstrated such strength, something Regina never would have seen in her princess Lily. Until now, Regina believed it was the presence of the wolf, but what if it was something else?
What if it was the absence of dark magic? …the absence of Cora?
"Mother?"
Regina stood up from the couch and walked around it. She placed her hand on the back of the cushion, her other rested on her abdomen, as she leaned forward. Was it possible? Did her own mother have a part in little Lily's undetermined illness? Cora had not been present when Regina gave birth, just her father had been. Had Cora been off cursing her own grandchild? Why?
Why would Cora harm her granddaughter who would one day be queen? That was all Cora had wanted – power, a reigning queen who shared her beliefs. Love was weakness, power was the key to all, but it would be a power Lily would be exempt from if her linage –
Regina's hand moved from her abdomen up to cover her mouth. Tears returned to her eyes. What if Lily was never the king's to begin with? What if…?
Going without an answer, Lucy had stood up herself and went to Regina's side. "Mother?" she repeated.
Regina quickly collected herself and placed her hand back on Lucy's arm. She gave her a faint smile as her hand trailed down to Lucy's injured own, who flinched. "That's who I am, dear," she replied, hovering her hand over Lucy's injury. A faint glow emitted from her finger tips.
After a moment, Lucy pulled her hand away and slowly unwrapped it, revealing that the burn had vanished. She looked up at Regina.
"And as your mother, just like all those years ago, I am going to protect you."
xxxx
Lucy had protested against the idea: to go to Gold's Pawn Shop was a suicide mission. It was too close to town, too close to the expected chaos that would be present outside. The town's people would burn Regina at the stake if they spotted her. Her command on magic was not as it once was and Lucy, without her wolf, was equally defenseless. It was a terrible idea, of which Lucy had not been able to talk Regina out.
They had to go to the shop. There was an item of importance that they needed. Regina would not give her any more information, just that it was important and that they needed it, an answer that only served to frustrate Lucy. What could they possibly need that justified this unnecessary risk when what they really needed was to keep away from wandering eyes? They shouldn't be here, especially now, when Regina was still recovering and her magic weak.
"He wouldn't keep it in the front of the shop," Regina said, more to herself than to Lucy, who had made it quite clear that she was against the unknown idea from the very beginning. "It's power is too dangerous to keep out in the open," she murmured.
"Dangerous?" Lucy repeated, eyes growing wide as she followed Regina to the back of the shop. "Mother, please, what are you doing?"
The only answer was the shifting of papers and the dragging of heavy objects against the wooden floor board, not exactly what Lucy wanted to hear It grew harder and harder to keep her temper in check as Regina kept shuffling through drawers and cupboards. It wasn't just the town's people they had to worry about – the shop's owner was even more beyond frightening, more capable than those people.
"Whatever it is, it's not here," Lucy snapped.
Regina slammed the cupboard shut out of her own frustration. "It has to be here!" she snapped in return.
Normally, her little Lily would have been taken aback, ashamed that she angered her mother at all. Lily was no longer little. Lucy took a step forward but still maintained a bit of distance, her inner child tugging and begging to just apologize. "It has to be here or do you want it to be here?" Lucy inquired.
Once again, there was no answer. No reference to the possibility of not discovering, not finding this mystical item.
"It's a form of dark magic, isn't it?" Lucy asked once m ore. Every previous questioning had gone unanswered. "That's why you don't want to tell me, isn't it?"
"Lily-"
"Isn't it?"
Back still turned to Lucy, Regina rested her hands against the countertop. She sighed heavily, her shoulders falling slightly. Slowly, Regina turned around to face her and leaned back against the counter. "Yes, it is," Regina finally admitted.
"Then we don't need it," Lucy automatically replied, shaking her head in disagreement.
"Lillian."
"Mother-"
"Dark magic saved you once, Lily, you can't deny it," Regina pointed out. "We need it again. There's no cheating death through means of light magic."
"Then we shouldn't at all!" Lucy protested, closing in on her mother. "You've let me go before-"
"And I'm not about to let you go again. How can you ask of such a thing from me?" Regina responded, cupping Lucy's face in her hands. "I won't lose you again, not when I know I can save you this time. You don't know how much I need you here."
Lucy looked down, or at the very least away from Regina, swallowing hard. She shouldn't have asked for such a thing, Regina was right, especially when they both could vividly recall that terrible time on the riverbank. Lucy could still hear her mother's awful cries and her begging pleads. Without a word, Lucy leaned forward, towards her mother. Regina wrapped her arms tightly around the little girl who did not know of her mother's own new unanswerable demands.
The short moment came to an abrupt end with the unnerving click of the back down of the shop unlocking. Letting go of the embrace, Regina took a step to the side and turned to face the opening door, keeping Lucy behind her protectively.
To be continued
